Beauty and the Beast

Synopsis

The most beautiful love story ever told.

Follow the adventures of Belle, a bright young woman who finds herself in the castle of a prince who's been turned into a mysterious beast. With the help of the castle's enchanted staff, Belle soon learns the most important lesson of all -- that true beauty comes from within.

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The Little Mermaid may have kickstarted Disney’s resurgence but it was the enchanting Beauty and the Beast that cemented their renaissance in the 1990s. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise’s film perfectly captures the magic and romance of the studio’s classics whilst bringing it up to date for a modern audience.

Belle, a provincial girl wanting more from life, finds herself trapped, first by the unwanted attention of the egotistical Gaston, and then by a beast in an enchanted castle. It’s an oft-adapted tale but outside of Cocteau’s spellbinding 1946 interpretation this is still the most magical iteration delivering a witty and swooning story filled with unforgettable moments that have transcended the film itself.

I never have/never will get this. Even when I was a kid seeing for the first time, I didn't get it. I really didn't get what exactly it is about this that simply....doesn't do it for me.

I know, it's kinda blasphemous of me, self proclaimed "massive Disney fan" to not be so into the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture, but here we are anyway.....

Unlike how I might be putting these words, I went into viewing this film again for the first time in a good few years with the mind set of attempting to enjoy it more than I have ever since I first watched it when I was younger.

It seems Disney learned their lesson after the release of The Rescuers Down Under, failing to completely realise that their audience have changed and once they have been offered something as compelling as The Little Mermaid, then the studio’s ability to meet expectations of their succeeding films should be matched, which they were able to with many consider to be the studio’s magnum opus of the Renaissance era, Beauty and the Beast. This film was so great that it was even nominated for Best Picture, the first of its kind, an acclaim that has proven once again to its competitors that they are still the greatest animation studio of all time.…

When Disney was founded nearly a century ago, I believe this was the sort of product they envisioned. Excellent on all fronts Beauty and the Beast is the amalgamation of everything Disney. It sits up there with the best Disney animation has to offer. Poignant, sad, and magical this film invigorates the heart.

Gaston/Lefou: No one plots like Gaston. Gaston: Takes cheap shots like Gaston. Lefou: Plans to persecute harmless crackpots like Gaston!

In 1991, Beauty and the Beast was the first animated feature to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars. Though it is by no means my favourite Disney Classic, it certainly isn’t hard to see why. Emphatically cinematic in scale and production design, classic and quintessentially romantic in aesthetic and theme, Beauty and the Beast boasts an array of characters and songs that burst forth with glorious charisma and a proud, inherited, yet altogether revitalised sense of identity from Walt Disney Company.